Learning to Swim

by Annie Cosby

  “Well, it was the little shed at the back of the property. Where the O’Brien boy works. He wasn’t working at the time, though, so I’m sure—”

  “Rory?” I nearly yelled. “You think Rory did this?” This was directed at my father whose glare hadn’t left me, searching for any break in my defense. But it was Captain Harville that cut in quickly.

  “Now, nobody’s pointing fingers at anybody. It wasn’t a serious affair. The door was broken open and there were some things thrown around. Nothing’s missing. We’re just seeing if anybody knows anything. No harm done.”

  I looked at my father. He obviously thought there was much harm done.

  “Well I can promise you neither Rory nor I had anything to do with it,” I said firmly.

  “That’s just fine, and now I’m going to leave you all and I want you to forget I was here. No harm done.” He hesitated before nodding politely.

  Mom got up to show him to the door, but Captain Harville hesitated again in the doorway. “Cora—I also wanted you to know that … well old Mrs. O’Leary talks about you a great deal. She sure cares for you a whole lot. And she’s been real sick lately. Won’t you go and see her when you can?”

  My heart plummeted and shame flooded my cheeks. That was the second warning I’d gotten about Mrs. O’Leary’s health. How selfish could I possibly be?

  But Dad succeeded in making me look like an angel in comparison just then. “I’m afraid Cora won’t have time for that,” he said coldly.

  “And why’s that?” I demanded, spinning to face him.

  Dad didn’t look up from the paper as he said, “Your mother and I have decided it’s best if we get everything in order and leave the eighth.”

  All thoughts in my head came screeching to a halt. “That’s in like three days,” I said.

  “We’ll start packing the house up tomorrow,” Dad said. Mom was quiet, watching the conversation between the two of us, and throwing awkward glances at Harville. The last thing she wanted was a public brawl. That would set all the ladies talking.

  “Fine,” I said, moving to go upstairs.

  “You’ll want to say your good-byes to Owen Carlton soon,” he pronounced the name carefully. “We’ll need you to stay around here, helping get things in order.”

  I stopped and spun around. “No worries, father! I said good-bye to that piece of scum a while ago. He was only trying to get in my pants!”

  I stormed up the stairs as my dad stammered for clarification. Mom looked horrified, and Captain Harville, well, his face looked quite alarmed, though I couldn’t help thinking I caught a passing glance of amusement there, too.

  Early the next morning, there was a soft knock on my door. It brought me out of the dreary in-between state where sleep meets the waking hours. As it was not in either of my parents’ nature to do anything softly, I was quite confused as I called, “Come in.”

  To my great surprise, it was my mom. She came in silently and sat down on the foot of my bed. “Cora, I’m sorry,” she said without preamble.

  I was flabbergasted. Of all the ways I imagined the next few days would unfold, that was certainly not in any of them. “For—for what?” I stammered.

  She seemed to think for a long moment. “This whole summer was supposed to be about healing. And being together and just—just … being better.” She anxiously ran her hand across the palm of her other hand. “I thought it was my last chance to—you know—fix things. Before you grew up. And left us. It was supposed to heal us all. But it just seems to have broken things more.”

  Well there it was. Finally in the open. Formulated into a real thought and put into words to stand in our memories forever. How had I imagined I would respond if this topic ever came up between the two of us? So many different ways, but I couldn’t remember any of them now. “Mom,” I said gently, “I didn’t need healing.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice nasally, as if holding off tears. “But I did.”

  Like so many other times that summer, Mrs. O’Leary came unbidden to my mind. I had never talked to my mother like I had talked to Mrs. O’Leary. Why had I never talked to my mom like that?

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I said. “Why whisk us off without explanation?”

  “Talking is my strong suit, but communicating? Nobody in this family is very good at that.” She paused. “Cora, you’re my only girl. I always thought I’d have four girls—all beautiful, and smart, and kind. Maybe one would be an artist. And one an athlete. And—And … But then, when we lost her … and you were the only one to follow—and I got all I wanted in one little girl—but I—I don’t know …”

  She seemed lost for words, so I offered up my own. “Every parent is guilty of living vicariously through their children,” I said.

  She shook her head. “That’s not it. I’ve just—I’ve been keeping things from you for so long, it feels natural. I tell myself I’m just trying to protect you, but in reality, I was just always trying to protect myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sniffed and her eyes welled up for a moment. But then she blinked and they cleared and she went on in a more determined voice. “I knew talking about her wouldn’t bother you; you never knew her. But it would hurt me. It would hurt me so much. And it would hurt your dad. We always said we wouldn’t talk about it with you so that it wouldn’t disturb you or upset you. But it’s just like a fairytale, isn’t it? A story. You wouldn’t have been affected. The ones who would hurt were us.”

  I was quiet for a moment. Mrs. O’Leary was weighing heavily on my mind. The kappas. The creatures that pulled children down to drown.

  The old woman had said: “I sometimes wonder … what must it be like for the human mother that never sees her child return from the ocean.”

  How heavy my heart felt, remembering those words. Even when she’d said them, I obviously hadn’t comprehended them. Not then. Only now did I begin to wonder it myself. What must it have been like? My poor, poor mother.

  The guilt of never having considered my mother’s point of view welled up and spilled over in the form of a confession.

  “Mom, I-I never went to swimming lessons. This summer, I mean. I went to one lesson and then—well I didn’t go in. And I never went back.”

  “I know that,” she said with a weak attempt at a smile.

  I was surprised. It wasn’t like my mother to know something like that and not confront me with it. “I’m sorry,” I finally said.

  She took my hand and squeezed it then. We weren’t the hugging type. In fact, a hug would have made us both uncomfortable. “I should’ve sent you when you were a child,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I went, once. Remember?”

  “God, you remember that?” She shook her head. “Joan knew how to raise you better than I did. I was so eager to be a better mother the second time around—not make the same mistakes, even the little ones—that I couldn’t see at all how to do it right.”

  “Mom,” I said hesitantly. Mrs. O’Leary’s words again rushed into my consciousness, a heady encouragement:

  “ … Every mother feels the tiniest bit of pride in her child … I think of Ronan and I am more proud of anyone else in the world.” Just what I needed to make the bigger confession. I took a deep breath. “Mom, I didn’t get in to Western.”

  “Well, there’s a wait list, maybe—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “I didn’t get a spot on the wait list. I got rejected. At the beginning of the summer. I got a letter. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  She looked at me for a long moment. Her face belied that we were at another point where Joan would have been far more capable of maneuvering the high tides of emotion.

  “That’s okay,” she finally murmured. “We’ll figure something out.”

  And I didn’t argue. I didn’t yell at her that I didn’t want her to “figure something out”—that I needed to figure it out. I was suddenly, for the first time in my life, positive that we could get it ri
ght this time. I could get it right this time—and whether my mother liked it or not, she would always love me. Just like another mother I knew.

  “Do you—” I faltered. “Do you still need healing?”

  Mom sighed and patted my hand. “That’s not for you to worry about, honey. I’ll find it. It was silly to think it was here.” She gestured around her at the walls and furnitues and suddenly fell to laughing. “It is pink, isn’t it?”

  I laughed outright. The first time I’d had a real laugh with my mother in a long, long time.

  “It wasn’t a silly idea,” I said. “Coming here. It was wonderful.” I paused, knowing that if I proposed what I was thinking, we would have turned a corner in our relationship from which there was no retreating behind our emotional blockades. We’d already come so far, so I decided to barge ahead. “Mom, do you want to meet one of my new friends?”

  My tennis shoes knew the way to the little yellow house without direction.

  Mrs. O’Leary wasn’t on the porch. When I knocked on the door, it was a good four or five minutes before she answered. She looked quite shook up when she saw me, but then she saw my mother behind me and her face grew softer, kinder.

  “Cora,” she said, studying my mother, “you brought a friend.”

  “Mrs. O’Leary, this is my mom,” I said.

  The little old woman came outside, shutting the front door behind her. “How do you do, dear?” she said, as she moved to her big rocking chair.

  I wanted to get straight to the point of our visit, before I lost the courage with this idea of mine. Before I convinced myself that putting two slightly crazy people together was a terrible idea. “Mom, Mrs. O’Leary lost her husband at sea.”

  My mom’s face looked pained for the old woman and I wondered if this was a bad idea.

  “Cora told me that your firstborn drowned,” Mrs. O’Leary said simply. “You poor child.”

  My doubt cleared. I was relieved that she had gotten the point so quickly. I studied the old woman’s face as her eyes characteristically roved the ocean. She certainly didn’t look as sick as everyone had been telling me she was.

  “Do come sit,” she said. I started to move to the chair before I realized she was speaking to my mother. Mom sat awkwardly down on the chair, and Mrs. O’Leary took her hand.

  “Cora, why don’t you stroll and come back for your mother in a bit?”

  “Okay,” I said, looking at my mother for verification that this wouldn’t alarm her. But she was looking intently at Mrs. O’Leary who had begun to expound on the good qualities of her Seamus.

  I left them and found myself winding toward the red cabins before thinking better of it. I didn’t want to seem overbearing, he could be working, and we didn’t have plans, so I made a move to turn around—but not before I spotted Jen.

  I froze, a chill running up my neck.

  She was standing in the middle of the boardwalk near the resort office, with her big blonde hair, and her tan arms were wrapped around Rory’s neck. God, she was skinny. His arms were around her, too. Limply, but they were there. On her back.

  It was just a hug, I told myself. But to the other part of me, that tiny (or not-so-tiny) insecure part of me, it looked like a passionate embrace.

  Well, you’re just as crazy as the two ladies back on the porch, I told myself. I turned around too quickly to see how long it lasted. I went to the beach and walked up and down in the sand for a while, actively trying to think of anything but that image that just didn’t seem to want to go. I don’t know how long I stayed there, digging my toes into the sand and then kicking it up around me.

  Eventually, I despondently made my way back to Mrs. O’Leary’s, not knowing if it was too early to return, but I had nowhere else to go. And I didn’t have the heart to wander. I was too busy mustering all my strength to prove to myself that I wasn’t heartbroken—that I was relaxed. Easygoing. It hadn’t bothered me. But I was a stubborn person to convince; it wasn’t working.

  When I first glimpsed my mother’s face again, she was smiling. A soft, gentle smile, full of emotion. When she saw me, the smile grew harder, more forced. It was obvious they had been talking about me. Mom said good-bye to Mrs. O’Leary slowly, but I didn’t interrupt them. They clasped hands for a few moments, and Mrs. O’Leary waved good-bye to me. She moved to her house without saying anything else.

  As we walked home, Mom didn’t tell me what had been said that day, what the two ladies had said to each other, but she did take my hand. And she didn’t let it go until we climbed the back steps of the Pink Palace.

  I didn’t go to the jetty to meet Rory that night.

  Ciall sa Focalil

  The Meaning of the Word

  It would be a cop out to say I didn’t go to the pier because of my mother—because I didn’t want to displease her. That’s what I told myself, but at that point, I firmly believed that after talking to Mrs. O’Leary, my mom would leave that summer feeling content no matter what I did.

  In the end, I was too scared to even look at Rory, who inspired deeper and more complex thoughts and feelings in me than any other person I’d ever met. I was so full, I felt that I would spill over. And thinking about Jen hugging him, that was a conversation that would definitely make me spill over. And I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

  The next morning, I decided I should go and say my own good-bye to Mrs. O’Leary. I was afraid of how she would react. Everyone had been telling me how sick she was, and I wasn’t sure how important I was to her—but if Captain Harville was to be believed, I mattered. I was afraid to upset her, but at the same time I knew it would be worse to go see her once more without mentioning my leaving, only to never return. The loneliness I felt surrounding and suffocating that little yellow house ached inside me, even from as far away as the Pink Palace.

  I set out, going over in my head what I would say to her. But I never made it that far. I ran smack dab into someone on the boardwalk. Literally.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, backing away, “I—” But my apology died away as soon as I realized who it was.

  I felt no urge to punch her. Or slap her. Or even do the cowardly thing and call her a bitch. All I felt was the overwhelming yearning to go shake her hand. All bets off. All hard feelings gone. You win.

  Of course I didn’t do any of that. We eyed each other awkwardly, but it was too late to pretend we hadn’t seen each other. To pretend we weren’t thinking who-knows-what about each other. There were hard emotions in her eyes, probably a reflection of my own.

  And as I stood there, having worked so hard since yesterday to banish Rory from my thoughts—as I stood there, groping for something to say to her, I realized she didn’t look angry or bitchy or anything like my rival. She looked sad. Inexpressibly sad.

  With the boy forced out of my mind, I could, for the first time, look at her like another girl. A little girl who, the first time I had met her months ago, had obviously just finished crying. A little girl whose big brother had just died. A little girl who was probably having the worst summer of her life.

  “Jen,” I said, willing my voice not to break. “I’m really sorry about your brother. And anything I may have said that made you feel sad.” Great, that was on par with a kindergartner’s apology. I wasn’t exactly great at expressing myself, but she nodded, so some kind of point was getting across.

  “I can’t even imagine losing someone like that. And at sea. I can’t begin to fathom how you feel. But I know it’s ten times greater than any pain I’ve ever felt.” I imagined my mother’s face. The times I’d walked in on her talking to a friend or my dad about her. The tears, the confusion, the trying to hide it all behind a smile. A pain greater than I’d ever felt. Always protecting Cora. Protecting Cora from feeling a pain that monstrous. “I’m really sorry,” I said again. My eyes welled up in spite of myself.

  Jen sniffed. I looked up to see her eyes welling, too. Just as I began to wonder if she was going to respond at all, she murmured, “Thanks, Cora.”
It was almost a whisper. But it was enough.

  In an unconsciously mutual agreement, we turned our opposite ways down the boardwalk. Once I had turned away I was able to stop the tears. But I was certainly not fit to see Mrs. O’Leary. I would go see her tomorrow.

  With my mother’s recent reconciliation and Jen’s grief on my mind, emotions I couldn’t control were raging through me as I walked home. I’d made it right with so many people, but there was another that I knew I had to get out of the way.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve and called Rosie. She picked up with a “Heya, bitch!”

  I responded with: “You made me feel like boyfriends were more important than me.”

  Of course, the other end of the line went silent. It was quiet for a long time but I didn’t hang up. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I think I’m okay with it now. But you always put boys before me. As if having a boyfriend was more important than having a best friend.” I paused for breath. And, more importantly, courage. “Eventually I started to believe it. I wanted a boyfriend just for the sake of having one, because I admired you so much. And … well, I was jealous.”

  “Cora, you were always more important than any boy.” Her voice was deep and full of emotion. Unlike the flippant tone she usually had in all of our conversations.

  “Well, thanks. I guess I needed to hear it.” I paused. “And I know that one day I won’t be. One day there will be a boy that sticks around or that you let stick around, and he will become more important in your life than me. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m okay with that—”

  “But that hasn’t happened yet,” Rosie interrupted. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  I laughed. “Okay.”

  There was silence as I tried to climb out of the pit of emotions we were stuck in.

  I lightened my tone. “In other news, I have a huge crush on a boy.”